Year of the Queen: The Making of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - The Musical (16 page)

Friday, and Ross is back. The Chita Rivera thing didn’t go well. He did end up cancelling but at very late notice, and there’s a lot of shit coming down on him because of it. A lot of people had bought very expensive tickets to see it and went away disgruntled. He didn’t want to come back to Sydney at all, and now he’s here, he clearly wants to run away again. Out the front of the group today he’s bereft of ideas, confidence and energy. He physically wilts in front of us.

Today is quite a picture though. Wardrobe had sent away to San Jose to buy up thirty pairs of stilettos big enough for the male ensemble to rehearse in. They’ve finally arrived, but the only colour that they had was bright crimson. Subsequently, the entire ensemble, men and women are all strapped into bright red stilettos ready to dance. Tony struts in already wearing his. Coincidentally, he’s worn a bright red shirt today which perfectly matches his shoes.

“Tony Sheldon! Look at your matching attire,” laughs Simon.

“You should see the purse,” Tony quips without missing a beat.

4. The ensemble in their crimson Stilettos.

We begin work on
Colour My World
but it goes nowhere fast. Simon pushes Ross, trying to help him but he has nothing left in the tank. His mood deteriorates and the ensemble is left scratching their heads as they wait for something to do.

At one point a mobile phone rings. The room stops dead. This is a mortal sin because, as well as drinks, bags and food, mobile phones are strictly outlawed in the rehearsal room. The usual penalty for a phone ringing in rehearsals is a slab of beer for the end of the week, but in a Simon Phillips rehearsal room the punishment is a bottle of Stolichnaya. I yell out that whoever owns the phone is up for this penalty.

Ross is forced to ‘fess up that it’s his phone and without any sense of humour about it, snatches up the phone and turns it off. His phone has already rung a number of times in the rehearsals so far and Simon begins to tease him, trying to lighten his terrible mood.

“The problem with making Ross buy a punitive bottle of Stoli is that it doesn’t represent a punishment to him at all,” he jokes.

Everyone laughs but Ross looks daggers at Simon, marches over to the louvered windows, opens them and drops the phone out to the footpath four floors below. Everyone’s speechless. Then he stomps back to his seat.

“There.” He says. “It won’t ring any more now, will it?”

By five o’clock everyone feels like we’ve gone through a grinder. The routine has been laborious and we’re all practically spent. Simon has to dash to Melbourne for MTC business and as he leaves, he jokingly instructs Ross to have something breathtaking for him to see on his return next week. The moment the door closes after him, Ross turns to us and says, “What the fuck are we doing? We rush around catching planes… up here, down there… off to Melbourne, back up to Sydney. Into a cab, out of a cab… into a rehearsal room… we parade around in high heels learning these funny dance steps. It’s madness.”

His monologue peters to a halt, his exhausted eyes begging us for a response. Everyone backs away politely, not quite knowing how to respond. He waves us away, calling a ten minute break and everyone eagerly scatters. I approach Ross and I throw an arm around him as we walk out of the rehearsal room, but I don’t have a clue what to say to him.

On the break, Tony has realized that I’m really not needed on Monday. I’ve been called for two p.m. but it’s only for my tiny appearance in
Hot Stuff
. He marches into stage management to organize me a two day weekend. I’m going home to Melbourne this weekend, so his efforts couldn’t be more appreciated. He comes out looking triumphant and says, “Sorted”. I could kiss him. I head to the airport for a desperately needed weekend with Annie and the kids.

Chapter 12

Rehearsals Week 3

I kiss my sleeping boys and creep outside to the waiting cab which toots selfishly in the freezing dawn. Half of me wants this madman’s horn to wake them up so I can say a proper goodbye. It’s been a frenzied weekend of children semi-attached to my limbs, odd jobs, quick affectionate catch-ups in the school yard with friends, as I deposit Hunter, and grasping at ways to describe to Annie what my last two weeks have entailed. I’ve used my ‘big voice’ several times to whip my little terrors back into taking bedtime, sitting up at the table and putting their toys away seriously.

As I speed away toward my seven thirty flight it all now seems like a blur. I’m struggling to wake up and choking back tears from having to leave them all behind again.

As I hit Sydney I somehow reorganize my brain. I enter my other life. The lump in my throat dissolves and is replaced by the stirring of nerves in my stomach, as I head through the ‘crazy-maze’ up to the rehearsal room.

Today is Tuesday and we’re working
I Will Survive
with our “Gumby” shoes on. If the red stilettos were a rare sight to behold, these shoes take the biscuit. They are at least a metre long, thirty centimetres high, half a metre wide, and made of foam. You slip your foot into a sneaker which is buried inside it to keep it on. These things aren’t easy to walk in let alone dance in, and we begin the rehearsal struggling to even stand up. The entire ensemble staggers around in a state of shock wondering whether this is an elaborate joke.

5. Struggling with our ‘Gumby’ shoes.

Tony’s face is stony. Not one to make a scene, he tends to absorb adversity but he is clearly hating this. We struggle through the choreography like children just learning to walk. It’s jovial at first but as it gets harder and even painful, our collective good mood gutters. Tony tells me later that his bottom lip began quivering after a while, as it was all too hard and he just couldn’t get the choreography. Jesus, did he take a look at me?

I have a lunchtime interview with a journalist at the pub. My energy level is flat-lining and I’d much rather be relaxing. The journalist appears to be feeling the same way, so I work doubly hard to try and keep the interview swinging. Increasingly, journalists are being seduced by the ‘fame’ factor and seem to lose interest in a subject who isn’t a film star or a pop star. This is certainly the case today. I’m clearly not on this journalist’s radar so I speak enthusiastically about the show and avoid talking about myself.

I dash back to work to find that we’re going to run everything we’ve learnt so far. We start at the top and work our way through the entire show putting it up on the floor. As each number comes around I realize I can barely remember a thing. Some routines are a complete blank and I only remember the choreography when I see others around me doing it. By the time we’re finished I feel completely spent. As valuable as it was to re-cap, it’s exposed just how far I’ve got to go.

While the ensemble work,
Thank God I’m A Country Boy
, the three Queens run scenes with Simon. It’s a huge relief as we’ve had little time dedicated to it. We run lines, revise blocking and work on scenes we haven’t put on their feet yet. I love watching Simon stage scenes. He’s got the whole picture in his head already. He tries to contrive moves with the actors which will fit with the rest of the big picture, but he still somehow remains true to keeping the actor at ease with the blocking. Michael Caton joins us and he approaches the work like a big kid, earnestly exploring his way through the scenes. He hasn’t been on stage for many years and he seems to be relishing his return.

On Thursday, the week seems to be speeding away from us. Most of the show is up on the floor now and we spend the day revising, setting quick change timings and finally, choreographing
MacArthur Park
.

Friday, and Spud has finished the “mega-mix”. A show as camp as this could never do without one. Spud has made a medley of all the dance tracks from the show and it will serve as the final, eye-popping climax and lead into the bows. Tim and Lizzy have designed an amazing collection of Australian flora and fauna costumes for the ensemble, and the number finishes with Tony, Dan and I entering as the Sydney Opera House. It’s going to look spectacular.

As the ensemble learns the voice parts for the “mega-mix”, Tony, Dan and I are whisked away to choreograph
Shake Your Groove Thing
. First we work the scene, and then Simon hands us over to Ross. He’s been quiet and slumped all through the first part of the session and looks very brittle. Slowly, he draws himself up out of his chair and approaches us in silence, as if gathering himself. Absently, he asks where centre stage is. I point it out to him. The rehearsal room has never been so quiet. He wanders the stage in silence with a hand cupped over his chin, deep in thought.

“Play me the song?” he sighs.

Kath hits the tape deck and we belt out the first few bars:

“There’s nothing more that I’d like to do

Than take the floor and dance with you
,

Keep dancing, let’s keep dancing.”

Ross snaps to, and begins stepping through what could be the first few bars of the routine, but I instantly see a problem. The first lyrics are played as a moment for the three Queens to steal themselves to go onstage. We lay our hands on top of each other, Three Musketeers-style and lift them triumphantly. When the song starts properly we hit the stage, and that’s when the routine should begin. I meekly interrupt Ross and point this out. He stops dead, looking like he’s just been slapped. For a moment I think he’s going to unleash on me, but this impulse falters and instead he bursts into tears saying, “I can’t do this.” And then he runs out of the rehearsal room, Andrew chasing closely behind.

Time stops momentarily. Everyone is stunned. My heart sinks. In the vacuum which follows, I feel everyone’s eyes on me. Simon is first to react.

“Jez, you know that wasn’t about you.” Deep down I know this to be true and that there was always going to be one straw that would break this Camel’s back, but why did it have to be me? I feel dreadful for Ross. I want to chase him too, but it would be inappropriate and in the end, not my duty today. He’ll be in better hands with Andrew.

Simon calls a timely break. Gossip spills gravely about Ross’s state of mind. I hear that he’s been making late night calls to Garry, warning him how unhappy everyone is in the show and that morale is at an all time low. This is just not true and clearly Ross’s bent perception of what is going on. Tony says he was asked in the foyer of a play he’d seen the night before, if Ross had left the show. Apparently this person had heard all kinds of rumours about Ross’s difficulties.

Andrew appears hours later and takes me aside.

“Ross wants you to know that what happened had nothing to do with you” he says. I ask how Ross is and he simply says, “Not good”, and leaves it at that.

The grinding week finally turns to Saturday. I’m informed as I arrive that Ross is nowhere to be seen, and we’ll be working through the show technically this morning. I’m not surprised at all and am worried about when we’ll actually see him again.

As I enter the rehearsal room I hear Simon ask Dean, one of the ensemble, how he’s feeling. Apparently he’s been sick. I can hardly believe my ears. With all the madness going on around him, Simon still has the bandwidth to notice the intricacies of each personality in the cast. Drama is coming at him from everywhere at the moment. Aside from the Ross dilemma, the music department is feeling the pressure of Simon changing things at will and have become, at times resentful. The wardrobe department is behind schedule and flinch whenever Simon makes an adjustment and there’s bound to be a fair whack of producer wrangling going on behind the scenes as well. Not only that, but he’s still the artistic director of the MTC and is constantly dealing with that business. But Simon takes on this high wire act with an amazingly thick skin and with incredible humour and good will, almost as if he thrives on it. Gradually, as things become more and more crazy, I see the cast turning to Simon with such love and respect, as a calming hand and the beacon of sanity.